The University of California Davis School of Nursing will expand its graduate programs this summer to include master’s degrees for nurse practitioners and physician assistants.

The university has revamped its joint nurse practitioner-physician assistant certificate program at the medical school, turned it into a master’s degree program and moved it to the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing.

The changes will comply with new accreditation requirements pending in 2020 and make the program and its graduates more competitive in a market where master’s degrees are the norm.

The focus is on preparing primary-care providers for rural and underserved communities.

Family nurse practitioners and physician assistants provide an array of preventive and acute-care services that complement physician care and increase access. The scope of practice for these so-called “mid-level” providers may increase if controversial bills pending in the state Legislature are enacted.

UC Davis has been admitting 60 students to the joint program annually. This figure is expected to drop by as much as half for the next two years, but the goal is to grow the program to 80 students by 2017, spokeswoman Jenny Carrick said.

Final students from the old program graduated Saturday. The new program launches this summer.

The school is accepting applications for summer 2014 enrollment. For more information, go to: nursing.ucdavis.edu.